Five minutes with…Vancouver artist Zoë Pawlak

Trends

Five minutes with…Vancouver artist Zoë Pawlak

“Being an entrepreneur and artist, you cannot be afraid to take risks,” says Zoë Pawlak. Perhaps that’s why the Vancouver-based painter and illustrator who specializes in figurative and landscape canvases—and describes her personal style as “eclectic and practical”—recently embarked on her first product collaboration: A series of five wool rugs based on her painting
Over Oceans. Take a look at the rugs and what Zoë Pawlak has to say about the collab...

On her Over Oceans painting: “My landscapes are about colour and feeling and expansive space. This painting is about a once seemingly impossible expanse to traverse (The Ocean) and how we move through massive shifts and overcome difficulty in this lifetime.”
On how she transformed Over Oceans into five rug designs for Burritt Bros. Carpets: “People are drawn to this piece because it is easy to understand how to crop into sections of an abstract work and make the compositions work in other mediums. I worked with the rug designer Ainsley Jones, to come up with five designs. “Fabric and rugs have to be seen from various angles, which makes
Over Oceans the perfect departure point. Also, this piece makes people think of freedom. Everyone is in pursuit of freedom right now, so it makes sense that there is an attraction there.”
On how she selects her colours: “I love all colour—I choose colour intuitively. Right now, I am loving chartreuse and emerald green.”
Up next: Stay tuned for more on Pawlak in the print edition of ELLE Canada—including details on her collab with Vancover-based fashion designer Nicole Bridger on two
Over Oceans silk prints for Spring 2014.
See all five rug designs for Burritt Bros. Carpets and Floors.

Zoë Pawlak in front of her "Lit from the Beginning" wool and viscose rug for Burritt Bros. Carpets., which is based on her Over Oceans painting. Image courtesy zoepawlak.tumblr.com.